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Colorado Music Venue Bailout fair

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Overlapping grant scoring sheets and stacks of U.S. dollar bills fill a faded collage about arts funding criteria.

CommunityJust Wanna Have Funds: Did the Colorado Arts Relief Grant Support the Organizations it Intended?Over 63 days, Colorado Creative Industries (CCI), created a set of criteria, launched an application, administered the selection process and allocated just under $6 million to organizations and businesses state-wide including music venues. “We were given the charge to distribute the funding as quickly as possible,” a CCI spokesperson told BandWagon. This hasty allocation of public funds was met with cynical speculation from independent venue owners who were not awarded money. Until now, the controversy over the grant has remained purely speculative. No one has pointed to specific evidence of nepotism or neglect on CCI’s part. But, thanks to the Colorado Open Records Act, BandWagon was able to obtain a copy of the scoring rubric used to evaluate grant applicants.Gabe Allen · Apr 5, 2021